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From: flink@umcp-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: imposing beliefs, and other good ideas
Message-ID: <3155@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 16-Oct-83 15:49:09 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.3155
Posted: Sun Oct 16 15:49:09 1983
Date-Received: Mon, 17-Oct-83 23:42:53 EDT
Organization: Univ. of Maryland, Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 77

From Laura Creighton (laura@utcsstat):

	I find the thought of IMPOSING my beliefs on others repugnant in the
	extreme. I do not think that this is the same thing as welcoming
	them in their attempts to impose their beliefs upon me, however.

Uh-oh -- an artificial distinction is being drawn.  By "not welcoming them
...", I presume Laura means she would resist forcefully if necessary.  But
any use of force constitutes imposing beliefs on someone -- if the others
do not share Laura's belief that it is wrong to impose beliefs, what right
does she have to force them to abide by it?

	What I think that you mean is that certain actions are bound to be
	prohibited by society. i would agree -- murder and rape, which
	spring to mind, are fine examples of actions which should be
	prohibited under any sort of legal code.

	However, "murdering someone" really does not sound like "allowing
	someone to express his belief that someone should be dead". it
	sounds like "suppressing someone's belief that he should be alive".

It sounds like both to me.  The only reason anybody would deny that murder
can be an expression of beliefs, is the correct notion that that's a belief
that nobody should have, combined with an incorrect attachment to the
rhetorical advantages of condemning "imposition of beliefs".

	...I find it impractical
	to define 'belief' in such a way that it allows you to enforce it on
	other people. Once you get into the business of forcing other people
	you have got out of the category of 'belief' even 'expressed belief'
	and have got into something very different.

	I think that this difference should be maintained through all
	further discussion. Otherwise it is too easy to condone the action
	of someone who "is only expressing his belief ...". 

So the supposed "right" to express one's beliefs is to be defended by a
verbal trick of redefining "belief" to exclude what you don't like, eh?  It
won't wash.  I've got a better idea:  stick with the correct definition of
"belief", and drop the spurious idea of a right to express any belief ...

-----------------------------------
From Byron Howes (in response to a comment by Gary Samuelson):

	If moral guidelines are to be explicitly given, whose moral
	guidelines will they be?  I doubt that you and I would agree on the
	moral guidelines for sexual activity, not to mention alcohol and
	(gasp) recreational drugs.  I submit moral guidelines are the
	province of the family, not the school.  It seems to me also a very
	short distance from the public preaching of morality to the public
	preaching of statist dogma as in the USSR or Nazi Germany.  The
	purpose of the school is to provide information, not proper
	prescriptions for behavior.

It would be intellectual dishonesty if I didn't voice my disagreement with
this.  I submit that moral guidelines are inevitably taught, at least
implicitly, in school.  So it might as well be done right.  Teaching
morality in school is nothing to be ashamed of either, as long as the right
guidelines are taught.

There, I said it.

But by disagreeing with Byron Howes, I don't think I'm agreeing with Gary
Samuelson -- I don't think *Christian* moral guidelines should be taught.  I
don't think moral guidelines should be taught specifically concerning drugs
or alcohol or certain other extremely controversial things, either.

And as for the slippery-slope argument about "statist dogma," well, our
schools already teach democratic political principles.  With political
philosophy as with morals, we just have to fight (with legislation, not
fists) to ensure that the right ones are taught and the wrong ones aren't.

Wishy-washy pretensions to moral neutrality have got to go.  

I hate cold weather -- turn up those flames!
				--Paul Torek, U of MD, College Park
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